The forge itself is shaped like a mighty, fearsome maw. Almost lizard-like. Sharp teeth bared in the archway over where the forge fires will be lit. The sparks of hearth embers will illuminate two, currently dark, eyes. Built into the floor are mighty bellows, intended to be pumped with the power of legs over arms.
Like the altar before its god rests the anvil in the center of it all. I approach reverently, my breaths shallow. There’s still life in this place, in this anvil. There’s still heat, for those who know how to feel it. “Hello,” I whisper, running my fingers along its top and edges. The grooves and indentations are different than any I’ve known, the mark of a forger whom I will never meet.
“Is it all right?” Ruvan is suddenly at my side. I don’t remember him approaching. His long fingers trail over the anvil as well. Our pinkies brush and the silver ring on mine catches my eye.
I quickly ball my hand into a fist. I’m suddenly imagining Drew seeing me brushing hands with the vampire lord.
“It’s more than ‘all right,’ it’s magnificent.” I can’t even lie. The ghosts of the blacksmiths who came before me still linger here, silently begging for noise and heat. For the clang of metal and the relentless hammering of creations not yet realized. “Why is it not used?”
“You heard Ventos, most of those awoken in the long night don’t realize we even have a smithy. The smiths all died long ago.” Ruvan’s attention drifts out the windows to where the ice-covered city lies beyond. “We only wake so many at a time, just enough to keep our people alive and protected. Those who wake have a function—usually to fight. Or to keep records. Forging was deemed unnecessary.”
“If you’re fighting, you absolutely need an active smithy.”And a dark forge should be a crime, especially one this pretty.
“It’s simply not something we have the numbers for.”
I don’t argue and instead am drawn to the hearth, inspecting the charcoal still tucked within. There’s enough stocked off to the side to sustain months of work. Without a thought, I get to lighting the forge by looking for the tinderbox. Before I know it, I’m stoking the flames.
For a glorious moment, I forget where I am and who I’m with. There’s only the heavy breaths of the bellows. The crackle of fire that casts everything in a familiar orange glow. There’s the clanking of metal as I set up my tools just as I want them. My heart is full. I am where I belong.
Here is the one space where I can express myself—where I have power. In Hunter’s Hamlet I am a prize to be gifted. I am the representation of generations of protections against the vampires. But in the smithy, I am creation itself. I am mighty.
But only for a second.
Reality crashes down around me when Ruvan speaks again. “You seem…rather confident in the smithy.” He sounds almost skeptical.
I pause and quickly resume my preparations. A hunter wouldn’t be so confident, would they? I quickly craft a half-truth and keep my hesitations to myself. If I’m going to make this believable, I must speak with the utmost confidence.
“I’ve spent much time in a smithy while weapons were being worked on.” I glance his way, trying to see if he’s reading between the lines I’m drawing. His face is impossible to read, but I don’t feel any doubt stemming from him. To my knowledge the fortress has never been breached, so the vampire shouldn’t have any in-depth information on what happens within or how practical what I’m explaining is. “Wehave a smith, of course.” I intend it as a light jab but he doesn’t react. The silence agitates my nerves just enough that it prompts me to speak a little faster. “The smithy was always warm. Bright, even in the darkest of nights. The fire never goes completely out. It always burned too hot for that and would be needed again too soon to ever snuff it completely. It was a place of power, creation, and life. Where people could gather and tell stories. Where men and women would gossip as they waited for their tools to be mended. It was the heart of everything.”
He folds his arms and leans against a table. I can feel his gaze on me, looking me from top to bottom, assessing my words. I imagine he’s searching for a lie but his stare doesn’t feel…it doesn’t feel like he doubts me. There’s an underlying gentleness to him that only puts me more on guard.
Nothing about a vampire is or ever could be gentle. But just as I think that, I’m reminded of his finger brushing against mine. Of the way he looked at me in the upper armory, begging for me to see things his way without outright asking.
I worry my pinky ring around my finger.
“You’re not what I expected of a hunter.”
I snort. “What did you expect? I made it a point to try and kill you.”
“That you did. And, goodness, with the magic you had surging through you, if any hunter could’ve killed me it was you.” He chuckles as if he finds it amusing now. Though it just settles a rock in my core.Kill the vampire lord. If Drew had kept the elixir, with all his training, maybe he really could’ve killed Ruvan. If I could hold my own, Drew could’ve won.
Does that mean we damned Hunter’s Hamlet and all of humanity by him giving me the elixir? What if this war could’ve finally been over? At best, Hunter’s Hamlet will kill the vampire lord during the next Blood Moon in five hundred years but…thisis why I was told to never step out of place. To accept my lot in life. The consequence of abandoning my post as the forge maiden ripples beyond me.
I have to get home, one voice in me pulls.You have to kill the vampire lord, first, another retorts. There is no future for me in Hunter’s Hamlet if Ruvan breathes. I am torn in so many directions my head aches.
“What is it?” He notices my hands have stilled.
“Nothing.” I shake my head.
“No, it was—”
“Where should I put this?” Ventos arrives with a clamor, unknowingly saving me from my own tormented thoughts. The various weaponry are piled in his arms. A heavy canvas tarp separates the silver blades from his flesh.
Ruvan must have the same thought as me about the risk. “What do you think you’re doing?” He rushes over, carefully taking the weapons one by one, ensuring that he only handles them by the leather wrapped around their hilts.
“I was doing what you asked; I’m bringing the weapons.”
“I didn’t expect it to be like this.” Ruvan pinches the bridge of his nose with a sigh. “Expected you to take multiple trips to be safe. What if one of them cut you?”
